Coletta, crouched down on the muddy terrain and smelled the air holding his M14 while Rambo left him to climb a small crest.
A few yards later, Raven lay down and began to slither.
Coletta realized he was far too anxious and had to find a way to calm down.
Closing his eyes, he sniffed the air around him again and listened carefully like his father had taught him to do many years earlier on one of their many hunting trips together.
That seemed to make everything clearer in his head, so he opened his eyes again.
Far more focused, he envisioned the enemy base as nothing more than a small anthill buzzing with activity, in the middle of a motionless jungle.
Everything was clear by then.
There were some other 'presences' too which were right outside the base (probably soldiers going in and out) but they were too far away to be a risk factor the Baker team needed to take into account.
A lot calmer, Coletta lay on the ground and crawled along the same path Rambo had until reaching him.
-
Rambo and Coletta silently dragged themselves a few meters further taking care to remain unseen behind the vegetation until the objective finally revealed itself below them.
Rambo stretched out his neck ever so slowly in order to get a better look.
Observing below he could see an open valley that stood where dense jungle vegetation once had. They had cleared the vegetation to create an open plain.
There were a few buildings varying in size but still under construction in the centre of this artificial valley. Along the area’s confines however, Rambo saw that there were two Russian-made trucks.
The Vietcong were building some permanent structures there and had literally occupied a small piece of Laos to do it.
It wasn’t clear to him however what its exact function may have been.
Observing further, Rambo noticed three huts with fortified metal roofs and that caught his attention.
He had no idea what pretext they had for being there since they didn’t look like armouries or soldiers accommodations for that matter.
Rambo surveyed further.
First he noted an old Russian-made excavator and then three bamboo made turrets which were roughly ten feet tall and each with a corresponding guard on top.
From that height, they have a perfect line of sight – said Rambo to himself.
Those on the other hand, could definitely pose a threat to the Baker team.
Rambo kept stock-still and maintained his position.
This game of hide-and-seek which he and Coletta were playing there was extremely dangerous, and they both knew it. In spite of that, all the training in Fort Bragg was giving them the necessary confidence to keep their sang-froid.
So, regardless of the guard’s line of sight, Rambo and Coletta maintained their position, stood perfectly still and continued their watch.
Gradually, Rambo pulled out some binoculars cautiously from one of his pockets.
On one side of the plateau, he caught sight of two men who were working together and appeared to be building something.
They were wearing some North Vietnamese uniform pants but neither of them had a shirt.
It was then that Rambo noticed exactly how skinny both of them actually were, which lead him to the assumption that they must have been slaves, or something like that.
Immediately after however, it became eminent they were not Laotians at all.
No... - Rambo thought.
Not they can’t be at all.
One of them was very tall, far too tall to be a Laotian.
Could they be Russians?
Rambo wondered if the circumstances called for him to use his camera.
The idea of giving the world proof of Russian involvement was awesome, but at the same time, a little childish.
The MacV had spent years, albeit unsuccessfully, trying to do exactly that.
In view of that consideration, Rambo decided to make a mental note of that odd couple, but then went on to examine the rest of the base.
It was unquestionably big for a construction site and there were a lot of tools scattered everywhere.
Whatever they were building – whether it be an ammo deposit, underground bunker or even a communication centre – it was definitely something big.
Rambo counted ten or fifteen individuals in all, of which six were armed with AKs, while everyone else was probably only a worker and, consequently, unarmed.
Well, in all actuality, they were slaves to be precise.
As he considered those two men further, a feeling of discomfort grew progressively stronger inside him.
Those are Westerners – he thought.
Dear God, that's what they are, they’re Western slaves.
The question was however, what the hell were some Western slaves doing on a Vietcong base in Laos?
Rambo immediately tried to think back to any cases of civilians recently kidnapped – or gone missing –in that area, but nothing came to mind. That was a Trautman thing, not his.
So in disbelief he stared at them for the umpteenth time and the harder he stared, the harder his heart seemed to pound.
Then suddenly, it occurred to him that perhaps those slaves weren’t just Westerners but maybe they were even American.
Shit – he said to himself.
He turned to Coletta with a look of despair on his face.
-
It didn’t take Coletta long to notice the look on his friend’s face, practically calling out to him.
He immediately decided to abandon his position therefore, and cautiously crawled a little further, up to the betting where Rambo currently was.
He then lifted his M14 and looked through its riflescope.
When he lowered his stare from his scope, he couldn’t help cursing either.
Those prisoners were Westerners all right and there was no doubt about it.
Rambo and Coletta nodded to each other: it was time to move.
***
As they got back to the rally point, they found it empty.
It was the team who made itself visible by slowly coming out of the vegetation.
“Well?” asked Ortega.
“Did you see Vuong?”
“No we didn’t. But we did see something else”
“Something else? What the fuck do you mean you saw something else?
“We have prisoners, Scorpio. Western prisoners, two at least, maybe more” said Coletta.
Ortega swallowed.
“Westerners?” he asked Ortega in disbelief.
“Westerners”
“Fuck... I didn’t really expect that, at all. We have to try the radio link again right now.”
“If those really are Western civilians then there's nothing much to decide at all” said Barry.
“We infiltrate and have a chopper get here”
“No one would like to free them more than I would, Snake. But as soon as the VC hear a gun flight going on, they might kill all of the hostages instantly anyhow”
“If that’s the case, then I say we free them in stealth mode,” Barry said.
“The stealth way won't work” Rambo intervened.
“They have too much personnel and far too many guards on the peripheries. Even if we could get inside without been seen, we could never get out of there without engaging. Much worse than not engaging would have to be us being captured. But if we’re the ones attacking, and we’re the ones doing it from the get go, then we could win with the element of surprise. And if Vuong is in there somewhere, then we’ll be able to get him too”
An attack – thought Ortega to himself.
There’ll be about forty North Vietnamese regulars in there, and we’re an eight-man team on a reconnaissance mission.
And if Vuong is in there for real, they’ll use everything they’ve got to defend him.
“Sniper?” asked Ortega.
“If we attack then maybe yes, but the truth is that I don't know, Skorpio. There are too many factors and not only how to release them, but the whole aftermath. The prisoners might be in bad shape so we may not even be able to take them to a LZ”
“Of course we could” Barry insisted.
“We’ll create a LZ ourselves somewhere in the near vicinity. We can do it” said Krakauer
“This is a building site. They are using the POWs as slaves. They’ll walk out,” said Messner.
“Okay that's enough guys. We have to get confirmation by radio in any case”
“No, Skorpio, we have to attack now. We can do this”
“We did the Indy five hundred to get here, Raven. Don't tell me what we can or can't do. If those prisoners can't walk and we attack, we are sentencing them to death ourselves”
There was a long silence, and after a while, Ortega felt the need to restate his position at least a little.
So he added:
“Fuck. I’m not saying I don't want to do this. I’m merely saying that we’re going to follow the original orders. We’ll wait for the next radio-link and we’re going to do exactly what we’re ordered to do. We are soldiers for fuck’s sake and we have a very clear mission objective, albeit complicated, but nevertheless clear.”
“The first radio link was a shitty one – said Messner – and the second might be too. And you know that, Scorpio”
At this point, Ortega had the entire team against him. Even Danforth kept quiet instead of supporting him, so he started getting annoyed for real.
How could he be the only one who wanted to carry out the original mission orders?
How could they not understand that he wanted to free the POWs too, and that he wasn’t doing anything except for his duties as team leader?
“What if the command decides to send a special team three days from now?” said Ortega finally.
“Maybe a larger one? We are an eight man team on a reconnaissance mission and light-weight set up, for fuck's sake!”
“Skorpio is right. Our mission orders are very clear,” Danforth said eventually, but it was too late to help Ortega by then.
Coletta, who was looking away towards the base - even if it wasn’t clearly visible from their location – shook his head to himself, as if he wasn’t listening to anyone of them.
“Three days from now everything will be different, Skorpio. whereas right here and now we have a chance” insisted Coletta.
“Do you see a chance, Sniper? Because I sure as hell don't. I see nothing but putting half my team at risk and the POWs being wiped out on a poorly improvised and very fucked up raid”
“We are a Baker team - said Rambo -. Even with our light set up, we have double the firepower of any other team. We have two M60s, five M72 rockets, two bows, mines and a prize marksman”
“I know exactly what we’ve got!” said Ortega in a distinctly aggressive tone through clenched teeth but still whispering.
“But we are going to go along with the original fucking plan anyway!”
Ortega turned to look each one of them straight in the eye as he said it.
“End of fucking discussion”
At this point a silence ensued among them as Ortega turned to them again, and said
“They will order us to attack, in all cases. Jesus Christ”
Rambo glanced thoughtfully upward towards the hill, as if he could see the enemy base through it.
“I won't leave them there,” he said.
“Raven...”
Rambo however meant it, and Ortega understood it immediately.
“No, I won't leave them there” he repeated.
Rambo turned back to Ortega but realized he was gone.
He had literally disappeared into thin air.
Rambo suddenly sensed something, something moving quickly but by that point it was already too late. Ortega had moved so fast that he had managed to take Rambo by surprise.
He unexpectedly found Ortega right in front of him holding his Baker knife right at his throat, like he wanted to kill him. Rambo, who was facing the base, had not even noticed Ortega moving, and by which time it was too late to react.
The gesture proved so startling and unforeseen that everyone suddenly froze, almost petrified.
It was obviously nothing more than a simple show of force. He would never have hurt his friend.
If he had decided to do so however, nothing in the world could have stopped him.
Ortega stared Rambo in the eyes briefly and then said:
“Don't contradict me on a mission ever again, Raven, not ever, or I swear to God I'll slit your throat”
Ortega pulled the knife away from Rambo's throat but didn’t soften his glare.
“You will obey your orders,” he growled.
Turning to the others, he said the same.
“You are all going to do what we came here to do”
“Yessir” Rambo eventually replied in the end, finally shaking Ortega off him in anger.
Once separated, Ortega put his Baker knife in his sheath again and said:
“Anyway, like I said earlier, they will order us to attack in any case John”
It sounded like Ortega was excusing himself, though.
“Because, in all honesty, it's the only sensible thing to do,” he said.